Entrepreneurship Educators…

This page provides ideas for class sessions if you want to add a module on startup failure to an existing course or if you’d like to launch a new course focused entirely on entrepreneurial failure.

What follows is based on a case-based MBA elective taught at Harvard Business School. A fourteen-session (“half course”) version of the elective focuses on startup failure patterns and how to anticipate and avoid them. A longer (“full course”) version adds another fourteen sessions on how entrepreneurs can fail well.

Below, I’ll present a suggested syllabus for a 16-session course with an introduction followed by three modules covering: 1) early-stage startup failure patterns; 2) late-stage failure patterns; and 3) how to fail well. Each session features a case study; instructors might wish to include additional sessions devoted entirely to lecturing or concept review. Further below, I’ll suggest cases for a 3-5 session module providing an overview of startup failure that could be added to an existing course.

Instructors could use my book, Why Startups Fail (aka The Fail-Safe Startup in the UK and Commonwealth countries, excluding Canada) as a textbook for a course or a module on startup failure. The book has eleven chapters, seven of which open with case studies of failed ventures and then analyze the failure pattern that befell the startup. This format should meet the needs of instructors who use cases to illustrate concepts conveyed through lectures and/or assigned readings. However, instructors who want concepts to emerge organically through class discussion — and expect students to do much of the intellectual work of “connecting the dots” — should note that my book’s chapters essentially provide both the case and its “solution,” that is, the equivalent of a teaching note that normally would only be available to instructors. Also, the case studies in my book lack exhibits (e.g., financial and operating data; team bios; etc.) that typically would be included as part of a business school teaching case. If these limitations pose concerns, instructors should substitute HBS Publishing cases listed below (when available) for the relevant chapters in my book.

Instructors who register with the Harvard Business Publishing Higher Education website can download sample copies of teaching cases from HBS and other business schools, free of charge. Members of the general public can purchase copies of cases for $8.95 each through the Harvard Business Review Store.

HBS Publishing cases are not available for some of the sessions suggested below. Likewise, teaching notes that provide guidance to instructors on learning objectives and how to manage a class discussion are not yet available for all of the HBS cases. I’ll be writing more cases, teaching notes for instructors, and a course overview note for educators during the second half of 2021. I will update this page as these new materials become available.

If you have any questions about syllabus options or how to use the materials I’ve suggested here, please contact me using the email icon in the navigator header or footer to this page.

Introduction

Session 1: Ample Hills Creamery. A comprehensive account of the failure of the Brooklyn-based boutique ice cream brand Ample Hills written by Courtney Rubin for Medium provides a good introduction to startup failure patterns. Founded in 2011 by a husband-and-wife team, Ample Hills raised $19 million in venture capital, opened 17 stores around the U.S., and went bankrupt in March 2020 — just before NYC’s Covid shutdown. Several factors contributed to the company’s failure, including:

• Over-expansion fueled by a charismatic founder’s fund-raising prowess and by a false positive signal: celebrity attention gleaned by the brand (from the CEO of Disney, Oprah Winfrey, etc.)

• The founders’ overconfidence, lack of domain experience, lack of analysis and planning, and neglect of employee’s concerns about operational problems

• An ill-fated decision to build a huge factory to support planned growth, which boosted the company’s fixed costs

The case provides an opportunity for students to debate which factors were most important and speculate about what the founders could have done differently to avoid failure. It also illustrates several of the failure patterns explored in the course, including Bad Bedfellows (in the form of founder shortcomings, investors who lacked domain experience, and a partnership with Disney that proved to be a distraction); a False Positive (the celebrity attention mentioned above); a series of False Starts (opening new stores without conducting enough analysis); and Help Wanted (the failure to hire a COO or CFO who could bring needed discipline to the venture).

Session 2: Jibo. Jibo, spawned in MIT’s Media Lab, was a “social robot” that forged an emotional connection with humans. After raising $73 million in venture capital, the startup was shut down in 2019 due to disappointing sales. The robot’s launch had been significantly delayed due to engineering challenges, and its cost was far above original projections. The Jibo case, presented in Chapter 1 of Why Startups Fail, can be used to introduce the following topics:

• The definition of “failure.” Specifically, whose priorities should be used to gauge success and failure — those of founders, customers, investors, or society at large? In Jibo’s case, its founder, who pioneered the field of social robotics, fulfilled her dream of seeing robots and humans form emotional bonds in customers’ homes, not just in her lab. Many customers were delighted by Jibo—some held wakes for their robot when Jibo’s servers were shut down. And finally, while Jibo lost money for investors, from society’s perspective, it now serves as the inspiration for a new generation of social robots that engage the elderly.

• The concept of a “good” startup failure — one in which an entrepreneur has a plausible hypothesis about an opportunity and undertakes efficient and effective actions to validate the hypothesis — with a minimum of waste, and with due regard for the risk of false negative and false positive signals. Students can debate whether Jibo fits this profile. The venture did conduct rigorous MVP tests and extensive customer research, including prototype testing. But the team also unveiled their product publicly in a crowdfunding campaign. Was the enthusiastic reception on Indiegogo from early adopters a false positive that gave the team unwarranted confidence to proceed?

• The concept that startup failure is often due to a mix of mistakes made by an entrepreneur and misfortunes, that is, events that an entrepreneur can neither predict nor control. For Jibo, which was priced at $900, Amazon’s launch of the $200 Echo “smart speaker” with Alexa represented a significant misfortune.

• Two late-stage startup failure patterns to be explored in Module 2: the “missing manager” element of a Help Wanted failure, and the Cascading Miracles pattern.

Module 1: Early-Stage Startup Failure Patterns

The course outlined here assumes that students have previously studied entrepreneurship basics. If that’s not true, instructors may wish to assign Chapter 2 from Why Startups Fail, which provides an overview of challenges confronting early-stage startups, or similar readings.

Session 3: Quincy Apparel. Quincy Apparel illustrates a Good Idea, Bad Bedfellows failure, that is, one in which entrepreneurs have identified a promising opportunity but failed to mobilize the resources required to successfully exploit it — with some combination of founders, other team members, investors, and/or strategic partners exhibiting significant deficiencies and dysfunctions. The Quincy case and the Bad Bedfellows pattern are analyzed in Chapter 3 in Why Startups Fail, and also in abbreviated form in an Harvard Business Review article that excerpts portions of that chapter along with portions of Chapter 4, which focuses on the False Start failure pattern. Quincy’s story is presented in greater detail in a pair of HBS teaching cases: Quincy Apparel (A) and Quincy Apparel (B), Eisenmann & Mazzanti, HBS #815067 and 815095; a teaching note for instructors is available for these cases.

• Quincy Apparel (A) abstract: Quincy Apparel designs, manufactures and sells work apparel for young professional women that offers the fit and feel of high-end brands at a lower price. In late 2012, Quincy's cofounders are debating how to approach a crucial board meeting. Their seed-stage startup is running low on cash; to survive, it will need more capital, probably in the form of a bridge loan from existing investors, who will attend the board meeting. Quincy's sales have been strong, but due to the company's novel sizing scheme, which provides more measurement dimensions than do typical women's clothing companies, inventory is high and operations are complex. Operational challenges have made it difficult to consistently deliver better fit, and merchandise return rates are higher than projected. With more time and capital, the cofounders are confident they can resolve operational problems. But will they be able to persuade investors to provide more capital?

• Quincy Apparel (B) abstract: Provides post-mortem analysis from Quincy's cofounders on why their startup failed and what they could have done differently. Explanations for failure focus on Quincy's ambitious value proposition and resulting operational challenges; cofounder conflict; poor approaches to hiring and motivating employees; and dysfunctional relationships with lead investors and factories that manufactured Quincy’s garments.

Session 4: Triangulate. Triangulate, a startup offering an online dating site, illustrates a False Start failure — one in which entrepreneurs, eager to build and sell their product, skip upfront research on the problem and solution they are targeting, and thereby boost their odds of failure by wasting time and capital on a first product that misses the mark. The Triangulate case and the False Start pattern are analyzed in Chapter 4 in Why Startups Fail, and also in abbreviated form in an Harvard Business Review article that excerpts portions of that chapter along with portions of the book’s preceding chapter on the Bad Bedfellows failure pattern. Triangulate’s story is presented in greater detail in a pair of HBS teaching cases: Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? and Triangulate (B), Eisenmann et al., HBS #817059 and 819080.

• Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? abstract: In October 2010, Triangulate's founder/CEO must determine what product features to develop and what marketing programs to pursue in order to boost the odds of successfully raising another venture capital round for his nine month-old Facebook dating application. The case recounts the process of launching a consumer internet startup, from idea conception through initial efforts to validate the concept, followed by product launch and subsequent business model "pivots."

• Triangulate (B) abstract: The case provides an account of how Triangulate’s founder wrestled with whether to shut down the venture after a pivot was only moderately successful, and offers the founder’s reflections on why the startup failed.

Instructors seeking another False Start case study might consider Dinr: My First Startup (A) and (B), Ghosh & Maslauskaite, HBS #816080 and 816025; a teaching note for instructors is available. In contrast to Triangulate, Dinr’s founder completed upfront research. However, the research findings were not borne out by consumer behavior after the venture launched. Was the founder’s research approach flawed?

• Dinr: My First Startup Abstract: In May 2012, a young employee at Google's London office, Markus Berger, was thinking whether he should quit his job and go after his dream of becoming an entrepreneur. Berger's idea was to create Dinr, a company that would offer an upscale food ingredient delivery service in London. A customer would choose a recipe on Dinr's website and would receive all pre-measured ingredients the same evening at their doorstep. Contrary to many existing similar companies, Dinr would not require a weekly subscription, but would provide one-off orders like other traditional food delivery services. Berger had already carried out an alpha-test of the service and completed an in-depth survey of potential customers to explore the market. Most of the feedback was positive, which confirmed Berger's intuition about this market opportunity. Berger had found a more experienced co-founder with technical expertise who was willing to join Dinr part time and gathered £40,000 of initial capital. Yet, making the decision to leave his corporate job and become an entrepreneur was not easy: was Dinr a good business opportunity? Would it be attractive to outside investors? What were the risks involved?

Session 5: Baroo. Baroo, a pet care service that marketed to apartment building tenants through partnerships with the buildings’ owner/operators, illustrates a False Positive failure. The first building at which Baroo offered service had attributes that led to unusually high adoption and usage rates by its tenants, compared to rates in buildings that subsequently partnered with Baroo. This false positive signal from Baroo’s first partner gave its founders unwarranted confidence to expand aggressively. The Baroo case and the False Positive failure pattern are analyzed in Chapter 5 in Why Startups Fail. Baroo’s story is presented in greater detail in a pair of HBS teaching cases: Baroo (A): Pet Concierge and Baroo (B), Eisenmann & Ma, HBS #820011 and 820026.

• Baroo (A): Pet Concierge abstract: Baroo CEO Lindsay Hyde was facing unrest from the board of her pet services startup in August 2017. One board member (and lead investor) was alarmed that Baroo's growth was slowing while it's appetite for funding was accelerating. Hyde wanted to hit the gas and continue expanding to new cities, which meant she needed to raise venture capital. How could she convince the board and potential investors that the business opportunities were too good to pass up and an infusion of capital could help her steer Baroo through the speed bumps?

• Baroo (B) abstract: Chronicles the moves that Baroo’s founders made in an effort to save their startup, and presents CEO Hyde’s perspectives on why the venture failed and what she could have done differently.

Session 6: Cake Financial. A case on Cake Financial, a failed “fin tech” startup, can be used to reinforce students’ understanding of the Bad Bedfellows and False Start failure patterns; Cake was arguably subject to both. The venture’s rise and fall, including the founder’s post-mortem analysis, is presented in Steve Carpenter at Cake Financial, Eisenmann & Wagonfeld, HBS #811041; a teaching note for instructors is available for this case.

• Steve Carpenter at Cake Financial abstract: After investing $9 million of venture capital, Cake Financial had failed to reach critical mass. In early 2010 Cake's assets were sold and the company was dissolved. Founded in 2006, the San Francisco-based Internet company allowed users to monitor their investments and communicate with each other about their portfolio strategies. The case recounts key decisions made by founder and CEO Steve Carpenter, including several "pivots" -- shifts in business model, position, and strategy -- made by Cake's team in response to market feedback.

Module 2: Late-Stage Startup Failure Patterns

If students have not previously studied management challenges confronting scaling startups, instructors may wish to assign Chapter 6 from Why Startups Fail, which provides an overview of those challenges — or similar readings, for example, the following HBS background notes:

• Scaling a Startup: Pacing Issues, Eisenmann (HBS #812099), which examines business model attributes, competitive dynamics, and capital market conditions that encourage entrepreneurs to pursue accelerated growth.

• Scaling a Startup: People and Organizational Issues, Eisenmann & Wagonfeld (HBS #812100), which discusses the organizational challenges that startups often encounter as they begin to scale rapidly, along with approaches to addressing these challenges. The challenges fall into five broad areas: the need to formalize organizational structure; executive transitions; the need for management systems/processes; evolution of the board of directors role; and preservation of an entrepreneurial culture.

Session 7: Fab.com. Fab, an online retailer of home furnishings, was founded in 2011 and failed in 2014 after raising $340 million in venture capital and achieving unicorn status. Fab was a victim of the Speed Trap failure pattern. In response to the venture’s initial success with early adopters who were drawn to the site by word of mouth, investors poured capital into Fab and fueled expectations of continued rapid growth. However, the next wave of customers proved to be less interested in Fab’s offerings. To acquire more customers, Fab had to spend heavily on marketing. Likewise, the lifetime value of new customers declined as their average order size and purchase frequency fell. Meanwhile, the startup invested aggressively in Europe to thwart the expansion of copy-cat services there, and also sank considerable capital into inventory — shifting away from its original asset-light, “drop-ship” business model through which Fab’s suppliers held inventory and shipped goods directly to Fab’s customers. Fab’s demise and the Speed Trap pattern are described in Chapter 7 of Why Startups Fail. The chapter also describes the RAWI test for determining whether a startup is Ready, Able, Willing and Impelled to scale aggressively. The Speed Trap pattern and Fab’s story are also summarized in this excerpt from Ch. 7, published by Fast Company.

In addition to Chapter 7 of Why Startups Fail, instructors may wish to assign Fab founder/CEO Jason Goldberg’s post-mortem post on Fab’s failure and what he learned from it.

Instructors seeking a second Speed Trap case and willing to teach about a forty year-old failure might consider People Express Airlines, Eisenmann & Barley, HBS #812134, which recounts the history of People Express Airlines, which grew explosively to over $1 billion in revenue after its inception in 1980 then failed spectacularly in 1986 — due to the venture’s aggressive strategy and its distinctive approach to human resource management, which emphasized job rotation and minimal hierarchy.

Session 8: Dot & Bo. Dot & Bo — like Fab.com — was an online retailer of home furnishings. Unlike Fab, Dot & Bo managed to sustain product-market fit as it scaled; customer retention rates were high and the venture’s LTV/CAC ratio (i.e., the projected lifetime value of a customer divided by the average cost of acquiring a customer) remained attractive. However, Dot & Bo experienced two problems that illustrate elements of the Help Wanted failure pattern. First, it took three tries to find a VP-Operations who could manage that crucial function effectively. Until the right senior manager was hired, Dot & Bo’s operations were chaotic and as a result the startup burned through cash. Second, once management got operations under control, Dot & Bo tried to raise a funding round to fuel its next wave of expansion — just as investor sentiment was turning negative on the entire e-commerce sector. Dot & Bo couldn’t raise more capital and was forced to liquidate. Chapter 8 in Why Startups Fail presents a case study of Dot & Bo and describes the Help Wanted failure pattern. More detail on the venture is available in a pair of HBS cases: Anthony Soohoo at Dot & Bo: Bringing Storytelling to Furniture E-Commerce and Anthony Soohoo: Retrospection on Dot & Bo, Eisenmann et al., HBS #820036 and 820037.

Session 9: Better Place. The founder of Better Place had a bold vision: to combat climate change by deploying a worldwide network of charging stations for electric vehicles. Many things had to go right for the vision to be fulfilled: consumers needed to embrace electric vehicles; governments needed to subsidize them; auto makers needed to redesign their vehicles to be compatible with Better Place’s battery swapping stations; and the company needed to raise billions of dollars. In short, the venture required a cascade of miracles to succeed. Better Place deployed its network in Israel and Denmark, but failed after raising $900 million in venture capital. Chapter 9 in Why Startups Fail presents a case study of Better Place and describes the Cascading Miracles failure pattern. The venture’s demise is also recounted in an IMD teaching case, Better Place: An Entrepreneur’s Drive Goes Off Track, Ben-Hur & Blum, IMD940-PDF-ENG (99A), available from HBS Publishing.

Session 10: Aereo. Aereo, founded in 2010, used one of thousands of tiny antennas clustered in a Brooklyn warehouse to capture a live signal from any of New York’s terrestrial TV stations; it then streamed the signal over the internet to a customer’s home computer or phone—either live, or time-shifted via a cloud-based digital video recorder. Aereo did this without permission from or payment to the TV stations, who sued the startup for copyright infringement. As court battles raged — and initially were decided in Aereo’s favor — the startup raised $97 million in venture capital and expanded to other cities. In 2014, however, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Aereo, forcing the venture’s shutdown.

Aereo’s story, presented as an HBS teaching case—Aereo, Eisenmann & Taft, HBS #TBD—is another example of the Cascading Miracles pattern. It also allows students to re-explore the definition of startup failure. Aereo’s founder was aware of the litigation risk confronting the venture; he initially estimated that given this risk, Aereo’s success odds were in the range of 10% to 15%. He also said that investors had committed a sum of capital they were comfortable putting at risk. Indeed, if the venture had been successful, its valuation would probably have exceeded $1 billion. On an expected value basis, committing $97 million for a 10% to 15% chance at a $1 billion payoff seems like a solid bet. Likewise, in his post-mortem, the founder expresses pride at remarkable technological breakthroughs achieved by his team and satisfaction at disrupting the television industry status quo. Having placed a calculated bet and having filfilled the founder’s personal goals, the case poses the question: Was Aereo a “good” failure?

Session 11: Moz. Moz is a SaaS startup that initially provided software tools used to manage website’s search engine optimization. The company pursued a diversification strategy, launching a bundle of other software tools for digital marketing professionals. The strategy’s failure culminated in the termination of one-third of its staff. The case study illustrates management challenges with product line diversification in a scaling startup. It also reinforces students’ understanding of several failure patterns. Moz management did not undertake enough upfront research before launching new products: a False Start. They lacked engineering talent: a Help Wanted problem. And an infusion of venture capital put pressure on top management to accelerate growth: a Speed Trap. Finally, the case allows students to explore the pros and cons of offering generous severance to terminated employees, anticipating a topic covered in Module 3, Failing Well. Moz’s story is presented in a series of three HBS teaching cases that are adapted from Rand Fishkin’s book, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World: Rand Fishkin at Moz (A), (B), and (C), Eisenmann, HBS #820002, 82003, 82004.

• Rand Fishkin at Moz (A) abstract: In 2016, senior management at Moz, a venture capital-backed startup providing software tools for digital marketing professionals, must decide how to address a looming cash flow crisis precipitated by failed efforts to broaden its product line. Seattle-based Moz had originally focused only on search engine optimization (SEO) software. Aiming to accelerate growth, over the past three years the startup had launched products targeted at content marketers, social media marketers, and small local businesses. Adoption of these new products had been disappointing, and the resource drain and distraction of launching them had reduced the growth of Moz's core SEO product. Management was wrestling with whether to either: 1) shut down or sell the new products; or 2) double down on the new products, funding further investment in them by selling the core SEO business or milking it as a "cash cow."

Module 3: Failing Well

As background reading for this module, instructors may wish to assign two chapters from Why Startups Fail. Chapter 10 focuses on the decision to shut down a startup—and reasons why entrepreneurs often delay this decision. The chapter then offers guidance on how to manage a shutdown “gracefully,” that is, in ways that preserve an entrepreneur’s relationships and reputation. This entails communicating openly and clearly with all stakeholders, paying vendors in full, and offering employees some severance and help finding a new job. Chapter 11 shares advice on how to recover from the emotional toll of startup failure, how to learn from the experience, and how to explain the failure to others when moving on.

Session 12: uBiome. Founded in 2012, uBiome’s products provided human microbiome analysis. After raising $105 million in venture capital, the startup was shut down in 2019 in the wake of an FBI raid and investigation of allegations of insurance fraud. The uBiome case (uBiome, Eisenmann & Graham, HBS #TBD) illustrates a variant of the Speed Trap failure pattern — one in which entrepreneurs, in their zeal to sustain growth, cross ethical lines. Other cases that explore the ethical slippery slope confronting founders include:

• Zenefits: a long Bloomberg story shows how pressure for growth led the leaders of Zenefits, a SaaS provider of benefits for SMEs, to sidestep regulatory requirements.

• Theranos: the rise and fall of this fraudulent medical diagnostic startup is summarized in Theranos (A): Who Has Blood on Their Hands? Nien-he Hsieh et al., HBS #619039.

Session 13: My Startup Has 30 Days to Live. Mike Gozzo chronicles his emotional ups-and-downs during his venture’s endgame in a series of gut-wrenching posts for his blog, “My Startup has 30 Days to Live.” The blog was anonymous when he wrote it; Gozzo later disclosed his authorship in a visit to my class on entrepreneurial failure. Other readings that might be assigned for this session include:

• Drawing lessons from the failure of his venture, Andrew Lee shares advice for founders whose startups are struggling

• VC Guy Turner explores the ethics of startup failure and when/why/how struggling entrepreneurs should be transparent with employees and investors

Session 14: Poppy. A case on Poppy, a Seattle-based, Y Combinator-backed startup providing childcare services, can be used to explore the sequence of moves a founder might make before deciding to shut down their startup, including pivoting, trying to raise more capital, and trying to sell the company. Poppy’s story is presented in Poppy: A Modern Village for Childcare, Eisenmann & Huizinga, HBS #818075 and Poppy (B), Eisenmann et al., HBS #820715.

• Poppy: A Modern Village for Childcare abstract: In 2017, management at Poppy, which matched families that required occasional childcare with thoroughly vetted caregivers, was formulating plans for the Seattle-based seed-stage startup's next phase of expansion. One option was to grow using the same business model through geographic expansion to cities beyond Seattle. Another option was to deepen penetration within Seattle by recruiting caregivers with less experience and by broadening the range of services caregivers could provide, e.g., driving children to appointments.

• Poppy (B) abstract: Avni Patel Thompson, founder and CEO of Poppy, an online marketplace for on-demand childcare, revisits the venture's final months, and discusses the steps she took in the wake of the shutdown. This case explores experiments the company conducted to refine its original business model, as well as how Patel Thompson rekindled her entrepreneurial ambitions.

Three other “B” cases listed above — Triangulate (B), Baroo (B), and Dot & Bo (B) — also review endgame moves made by founders, and could be assigned along with Poppy if students have read their respective “A” cases.

Other readings on how to decide whether to shut down a struggling startup — and how to manage through the series of moves that precede that decision — might include:

• Paul Graham, founder of the Y Combinator accelerator, discussing the importance of understanding whether you are "default dead," i.e., how many more months you can operate without raising fresh capital; Graham on options for founders when cash is running low

• Entrepreneur Gabe Zichermann on when to pull the plug

• Foundry Group’s Brad Feld arguing that sometimes failure is your best option

• Brooklyn Bridge Venture’s Charlie O'Donnell on what to do when your startup has stalled

• Entrepreneur Vin Vacanti on when to shut down a startup

• SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin describing the drama and conflict that can ensue when an entrepreneur seeks bridge financing from existing investors

Session 15: Zen99. Failed founder Tristan Zier offers a list of steps for entrepreneurs considering a shut down in part 3 of his post-mortem of his failed startup, Zen99, a SaaS provider of tools for gig economy contractors. Other readings that describe how to manage a shutdown might include:

• A post listing shutdown steps from failed founder Alex Fishman

• A post from entrepreneur Gabe Zichermann exploring options such as pursuing an acquihire and specific steps a founder should take to shut down responsibly

• Jason Freedman offers tips on how to fail "elegantly," i.e., keeping one's reputation/relationships intact

• Josh Maher on how to tell an investor that failure is likely, and steps to take in preparing for a shutdown

• Bethany Laurence’s guidance on the legal advice website NOLO how to decide whether to file for bankruptcy or liquidate assets yourself. NOLO’s “Going Out of Business” page offers more advice on related topics

Session 16: Hubitus. In a blog post, Adi Hillel, founder of Hubitus, a failed online community for freelancers, shares the following advice for founders confronting their venture’s demise: 1) don’t get emotionally attached; 2) take time to mourn; 3) re-frame your failure as an inevitable part of startup life and an opportunity to grow; and 4) turn your life into a startup, viewing your efforts as experiments and iterating in response. Other readings on recovering and learning from startup failure might include:

• A First Round Review interview in which serial entrepreneur and investor Jeff Wald offers advice for failed founders on how to cope with and learn from failure

• Steve Blank riffing on the Kubler-Ross stages of grief model to describe an entrepreneur's likely emotional reactions to failure

• Lauren Kay, co-founder of Dating Ring, describing her efforts to rebound from its failure after six years of “hiding in shame”

• Entrepreneur Andy Sparks on coping with startup failure

• Rui Delgado chronicling the personal physical and emotional toll taken by his failed startup

• Josh Carter describing his emotions in the wake of his startup’s failure and how he dealt with the grief

• Nikki Durkin recounting the last days her startup, 99dresses, and what it felt like after the venture failed

A Module on Startup Failure for an Existing Entrepreneurship Course

Instructors who want to add a module on startup failure to an existing entrepreneurship course might consider the following four-session sequence:

1. Quincy Apparel (session 3 above)

2. Triangulate (session 4 above)

3. Ample Hills Creamery (session 1 above), perhaps supplemented by a summary of the Speed Trap failure pattern published in Fast Company magazine, and/or the two HBS background notes titled “Scaling a Startup,” listed in the introduction to Module 2 above.

4. My Startup Has 30 Days to Live (session 13 above), perhaps supplemented by some of the other readings assigned above for Module 3 sessions.

Quincy and Triangulate illustrate two early-stage startup failure patterns — Bad Bedfellows and False Starts — and were afflicted by polar opposite problems: Quincy targeted the right opportunity with the wrong resources, and Triangulate pursued the wrong opportunity despite having the right resources.

Ample Hills illustrates two late-stage startup failure patterns: the Speed Trap and Help Wanted.

The “30 Days'“ posts allow students to discuss how to decide whether to shut down a struggling startup, explore the sequence of moves that precede a shutdown, and consider the human cost of startup failure.